All had felt sure that he would not and could not remain. He had taken the loss of his nephew too much to heart, poor fellow! he was quite an altered man since then. Always still and reserved, he had become so much stiller, and so much more reserved, that his voice was seldom heard except in the choir.

“He had grown as thin as a skeleton,” said tearful Mrs. Tope, relating the news to her lodger, Mr. Datchery, who took little notice of it, remarking indifferently —

“What did it matter to a buffer, whether this or that master led the choir,” but supper being over, and Mrs. Tope departed, he added one thick stroke to his reckoning behind the door, and then taking up his hat, strolled out into the Cathedral Close. It was already dark, and light was shining out from the Gate House window, so that Mr. Datchery could distinctly see the figure of a man passing to and fro inside, — Mr. Jasper, doubtless, perhaps already making preparations for departure. With a perplexed face, Mr. Datchery watched him, until aroused by feeling something hit him from behind. Turning round sharply, he became aware of Deputy, who was dancing behind him in great glee, and exclaimed, angrily —

“Ah, you young vagabond, are you going to make a mark for your stones of me. You had better leave off that game, I can tell you.”

“‘Ere’s a row,” said Deputy, “just because I give you one as a widdy warning. I want’s to speak to you, and I don’t want for ‘im to hear,” shaking his fist angrily in the direction of the shadow on the blind. “I’ve been a watchin’ of ‘im for the last arf-a-hour, while I’ve been a waitin’ for you, and now you comes a rowin’ and a scandalizin’ of me like that. It’s ‘arrowin’ to the feelin’s of a chap,” said Deputy, rubbing both dirty eyes with his dirty fists, and pretending to be bitterly hurt, while all the while, he sharply scanned Mr. Datchery between his fingers, and mentally calculated how much he might get out of him.

“Come, come,” said Mr. Datchery, good-humouredly, “out with it, Winks, what have you got to tell me? A shilling will make us good friends again, will it not?”

“A ‘arf-a-crown,” whimpered Deputy, “I’ve injered my ‘ealth a findin’ of it out. ‘Er Royal Ighness is confounded hard to badger. I’d tried every dodge and a’most given it up. I told her she reminded me of my dead and gone mother, who died o’ whisky, after ‘avin’ nearly broke every bone of my body (this for the private information of Mr. Datchery) and that I’d come and see her in London. She didn’t rise to that fly at all. I didn’t remind her of her dead and gone son, and she didn’t receive no wisitors, except in a business way.”

“Well, well,” put in Mr. Datchery, impatiently, “did you find it out at last?”

“Wait a bit,” continued Winks, “you’re a comin’ to it a deal faster than I did. I was dead beat, and, afeared you’d come too short this time, Dick, but when she set out to walk back to the station, all mumblin’ and totterin’, I made up my mind not to lose the last chance, and follered her.”

“Hoping to hitch it out of her on the road, eh, Winks?”

“At a conwenient distance,” went on Deputy, gravely, “lookin’ out for the chance of pickin’ of it up; a mindful of my promise and a reckonin’ on your gratitood.”

“Not in vain, Winks, old boy!” said Mr. Datchery with a laugh, “I’m an inquisitive old buffer, and I’ve got the means of gratifying my curiosity; the woman interests me; I’ve a notion of making a call upon her, when I go up to town; she seems one of the right sort for mixing the opium pipe, and for a buffer who’s nothing on earth to do, anything that turns up is a godsend.”

Winks, who during these few remarks had been profusely illustrating his name, now put his thumb to his nose, and widened his fingers towards his friend, with every sign of contempt and derision; then, with a laugh, which seemed to proceed from his stomach, his mouth being totally unaffected by it, he replied —

“Don’t take no trouble to waste none of your chaff on me, Dick, for I sees through yer as through a winder-pane.”

“Bless my soul!” exclaimed Mr. Datchery, angrily, “what an offshoot of the devil it is! Why don’t you tell me what I want to know?

MUELTE A TOPEE!